BuzzFlash Mailbag for July 27, 2006

I try very hard when sending letters to our local paper to muffle the rage I feel. I have had numerous letter rejected for being “inflammatory”. So I try to get my message across in a less strident tone. And it ain’t easy. I have spent nearly 6 years in a rage. What it has done to my blood pressure and arteries is not a good thing.

How can anyone not be totally enraged? How can anyone with the I.Q. of a fruit fly not be disgusted with what has happened to our country? How can anyone with a claim to honesty and integrity not be ashamed of what we have become?

Yet people around me seem oblivious to what has happened to their country. One acquaintance told me, “I just can’t get interested in all that political stuff.” This twit could name every idiot on Survivor, American Idol and other “reality” programs too insipid to mention. But she just can’t be bothered with politics.

Face it, my friends, there is no cure for stupidity. Ignorance can be cured but stupidity is a life long affliction.

If you don’t get mad when you see the Constitution trashed, Americans dying for a lie, war being touted as a way to peace and science being pushed aside for someone’s religious beliefs, then you belong in the corner with my acquaintance the Twit. (Doesn’t it really make your blood boil that Twits get one vote apiece just like we do?)

Fortunately for me there are places where my rage is not only allowed, it is applauded. That’s probably what keeps my head from exploding.

So I to thank BuzzFlash for being good for the health and well-being of those of us who gather here in the Mailbag. Without this safety valve I fear many of us would fly into more pieces than could be reassembled. Or clout our Twit Acquaintances over the head with the nearest blunt object.

I just keep telling myself over and over that Twits are a judgment on humanity for our screwing up the planet. We all have to breath the same bad air, drink the same toxic water and tolerate the Twits of the world.

Marjorie Swanson Kenosha, Wisconsin

Subject: Democrats Betray Own Party

When a former Democratic president and a progressive Democratic senator from California go to the aid of a senator who is already gathering signatures for an independent run if he loses the primary, something is deeply wrong with the Democratic party.

Both Clinton and Boxer have shown no RESPECT for the will of the people who actually voted them in -- Democrats. How can they support someone who has already said he will break ranks and leave the party to make a run if the Democrats of Connecticut deem him unworthy of another term?

Now I have no guilty feelings of hanging up the phone when the Dems call for money. If the stalwarts won't stick up for the party, why should I?

It's a disservice to the urgent needs of this country and the distinguished contributions of past Democrats. But IMHO, these "new" Democrats can all go to hell.

Mike KilroyAliso Viejo, CA

Subject: "Urging Restraint? Is That the Best We Can Do???!!!

Innocent CIVILIANS are dying, a country being destroyed again for the Bush Doctrine that has failed in every country it has touched. In the myopic world of fantasy, the puppets, Israel and Great Britain, can’t admit how wrong they were, so they all continue to feed us their tired propaganda of progress and patience as the world falls apart at their feet because of their miscalculations!

Look again, there she is, Mushroom Cloud Condi, urging restraint, trying to say we are getting it right this time, pushing the neocon delusion of changing the Middle East, but always at too great a cost in human life and money that could have been spent improving our country. The brain dead are afraid to confront the truth of the death and despair they have caused! THE OPERATIVE WORD HERE IS FAILURE!

Susan CarrNo. Hollywood, California

Subject: Make Music Not War

Rob Moitoza, member of Western Washington Veterans for Peace, Post 92, and Washington Blues Society winner for “Best Bass” 2002 and 2005 is proud to announce that his song “You’re Not Alone,” from his CD “Speak Out!” is now being featured on the DVD “Soldiers Speak Out” by the Empowerment Project. The song is accompanied by a slide show featuring photos taken at peace marches in Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. “The DVD serves as a counter-recruitment and organizing tool for veterans, activists, schools, and organizations, providing a sober view of the war in Iraq and an important counterpoint to the “stay-the-course” rhetoric of the Bush administration. The DVD was spearheaded by Barbara Trent, producer of the award winning documentary, ”The Panama Deception.”

Rob and his musical associate, Felix Misch, are also delighted to announce that their song “Tag You’re It” is being featured on Air America’s Thom Hartmann program. (Monday through Friday, 9 to noon on Seattle’s A.M. 1090) Thom has previously aired “Chicken Hawks” and “George Bush National Park” from Rob’s CD “Speak Out!” The song “Tag You’re It” was specially written for the radio show based on the words and wisdom of progressive talk show host, Thom Hartmann.

Rob and Felix are currently working on a full length CD which will include the song “Tag You’re It” as well as a variety of other songs ranging in style from country-pop to rock to funk. It will also include the song “Veterans for Peace,” a song specifically dedicated to the anti-war organization. The CD will be released under the band name “We the People,” and should be out sometime this summer.

Rob Moitoza’s “Speak Out!” CD and “World on Fire, Songs for Peace,” a Moitoza/Ingraham collaboration, are available at www.spacebrothersrecords.com

Thanks for the concern, Genie. We were only out [power blackout] about 10 hours...many are still out...and sadly, they are the ones in the poorest zip codes, I guess we can never get away from politics...and money grubbing utility companies. I am still watching Howard Dean as much as ever, and if he looks like he is going to run again, I am there! To Larry Norman of Ca ... All through the l990's I defended Bill Clinton to the very end...and still think he was impeached for idiotic reasons. like Tom Delay's remark, "Maybe now we can get some things done that we want"... I still think, policy wise...Clinton was the best. But, I totally lost respect for him when he went and sucked up to Lieberman. Yes, it is someone's fault that we went into Iraq...yes, Clinton's wife and Joe Lieberman both...voted for the war in Iraq...and even after finding out that it was phoney...they will not have enough respect for the American People to admit that they made a mistake! I am sad!

Shirley ... St. Louis

Subject: Walter Come Back

Hi Buzz....

I just finished watching the Walter Cronkite documentary...and had to run right in here to my computer to say a million thanks to you for letting me know to watch it. You see...in my family I grew up with Walter. There was no one like him (and I guess there never will be again). I hope all of your millions of readers got to watch it. If they did they got a chance to see another GREAT reporter of that time...during one especially chilling scene...Dan Rather...who took over for Walter when he left...BUT the changing of the guards at CBS, after Walter left (I remember watching the last night of his sign off too) chewed up Dan and spit him out like a plug of tobacco. Yes Buzz I lived during that era...and am so lucky to be one of the ones that did...and it will never be the same again...those were the days when JOURNALISM was really journalism. If we had that today...we wouldn't have the "Idiot" in charge...still living in OUR HOUSE.

Thanks again Buzz.

Genie

Subject: Staying the Course

Buzz,

For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise. -- Benjamin Franklin

I wish W would read some history. This is what we get for having an ignorant idiot in office. I don't believe that having a college degree means that a person has the power to analyze, because if that was true, there would be no educated folks supporting the incumbent.

Akhil BhardwajManhattan, KS

Subject: Democrats

Democratic candidates will provide more fodder for the swift boaters as they cozy to big money pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

SamstoneLake Worth, FL

Subject: Israel-Lebanon Disaster

I am so disgusted with our "fearless" leaders. This latest tacit agreement with allowing Israel to invade and occupy Lebanon, killing countless civilians, as they do so is beyond repulsive.

They keep stressing we want an "enduring" solution. For god's sake, are they so depraved in their thinking that they don't realize enduring peace is the end-game? Don't they realize that you need to have a cease-fire to work on the end-game? It seems they are doing everything bass-ackwards as they have done from the get-go.

The solution is so simple but they are making it complicated. First of all, using the UN as its broker, call for an immediate cease-fire. Create a buffer zone that extends 10 miles into Israel and Lebanon from their common border, then a multi-national peace keeping force preferably comprised of non-Arab and non-Israeli forces.

I was quite surprised the other day as I was doing some research into this whole mess in the Middle East at large. According to an article I read at one on-line source, the foreign media are reporting a very different version of what really happened to precipitate this current conflict. According to these sources, the Israeli soldiers who were allegedly "kidnapped" by a Hezbollah raid into Israel is not accurate. Their version, as confirmed by Lebanese police, is that the Israeli soldiers had, in fact, infiltrated Lebanon and ran into Hezbollah within Lebanon's borders. Has anyone else heard this?

If these reports are accurate then it puts this entire mess into a totally different light. If these reports are accurate then we have been lied to yet again.

I'm so sick of the Bush Cabal's thirst for blood. Are they trying to fulfill some macho, testosterone driven fantasy to prove they're manly, when in fact they are not even worthy enough to be girly-men?

In my mind, I keep hearing a haunting phrase from a Bette Midler song from several years ago:

"God is watching us, God is watching us, God is watching us -- from a distance."

S/He is probably weeping from how little we have learned.

Lisa JohnsonMilwaukee, WI

Subject: To the United Nations

I have noticed our cable news shows and our government think nothing of calling other world leaders names and slinging remarks about their intelligence. However, if anyone in another country dare say what they really think of gw bush, the white house and fox news come un-glued! Many of us in this country realize Bush has the IQ of a cucumber. We are just hoping the next president can clean up bush's mess!

Shorty in Memphis

Subject: Shell's Gazillionaire Profits

Criticize the oil companies all you want, but you've got to admit that their investments in politicians such as Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have certainly paid handsome dividends. Too bad about all those dead soldiers and the Middle East being in flames, but as Stalin said, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs.

Jon KrampnerLos Angeles, California

Subject: Bushco and Israel Conspire To Lure al-Qaeda?

It's quite obvious. BushCo is supplying Israel with bombs (via a Scotland airport, to date) to allow them to continue bombing Lebanon. Now, as if on cue, Al-Zawahiri (Al-Qaeda's #2) presents his two cents, stating "Israel will pay." This is exactly what BushCo needed ... Al-Qaeda back in the spotlight. The Iraq civil war/insurgency is too messy ... BushCo can not win the PR battle by slamming those Iraqis fighting for their own freedom and their country. BushCo needs Al-Qaeda ... and, the Republicans need Al-Qaeda. Rove needs to keep 'terrorism' on the front burner well into the pre-election months. The only way to do that was with another war. BushCo was to launch war in Iran, but the extreme unpopularity of that intention killed off that idea, for now. Somehow, I have to believe that BushCo has an operative plant in Hezbollah ... that started the current conflict by kidnapping Israeli soldiers. There you have it.

Jane Lute, the assistant secretary general for peacekeeping, told the UN security council that the base came under close Israeli fire 21 times - including 12 hits within 100 metres and four direct hits - from 1.20pm until contact was lost with the four peacekeepers inside at 7.17pm.

If you bombard the area around a well-known UN position for hours, if you are informed of each of 14 close or direct strikes and continue to shell, is it really “deplorable, and irresponsible,” as Israel’s Ambassador to the UN said, to suggest that your behavior might have been deliberate? What is genuinely “inconceivable”* is how a choice to not redirect artillery fire after multiple requests to do so from those UN observers can be called an “accident.”

It's inconceivable for the U.N. to define an error as an apparently deliberate action. -- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert

Albert ClarkNY

Subject: Outlaw Behavior

Mr. Bush:

I see by a Washington Post article that a group within the White House is working on an irregular "military trial" procedure for the persons illegally held at Guantanamo.

The United States Supreme court more than two years ago deemed their holding without due process was illegal under the Constitution. More recently, it has ruled that your plans for kangaroo court "trials" were in violation of the Constitution.

What part of NO don't you understand?

John F. WillifordRichland, WA

Subject: WMD Poll

There are times I despair for our country. A recent Harris poll found that the percentage of Americans who believe that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, (WMD) before our illegal invasion, has risen from the low 30s to now 50. This Bush Administration has made a killing, (literally) on the fact that the average modern American citizen has ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). The Bush chorus of radio and TV persons (singing absolutely in harmony) spouts recently that we have found WMD in Iraq. Badda-bing, badda-boom, our President didn’t lie to us after all.

Let’s dig just a tad bit deeper shall we?

The weapons found in Iraq where degraded chemical and biological weapons that the US gave to Saddam in the 1980s. Military experts said that the weapons were no more dangerous than what most of us keep under our kitchen sinks. Citizenship, the kind our ancestors fought and died for, requires more from us than passively opening our mouths and swallowing whatever we’re spoon-fed. There were no WMD. Crucial intelligence was there stating Iraq was NOT a threat to our nation, it was ignored. These are facts. The Bush Administration is counting on that you are more interested in who wins the next American Idol.

Daniel Patrick SchamleLawrence, Kansas

Subject: Cakewalk to Baghdad

Those BFers who were coming of age during the mid-late 60s will remember the famous anti-war protest song, "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die" rag by Country Joe McDonald and the Fish. Country Joe and the Fish were one of the opening acts of the Woodstock Festival at Yasgur's farm.

Well, good old Joe is back again with a new war song called "Cakewalk to Baghdad." It's available for listening at Country Joe's website -- as is the "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Die Rag."

Just thinking how great it would be if MTV or someone would do a pro-peace concert on TV of some of the newer artists speaking out through song, and feature as special guests some of the "elders" of the pro-peace movement -- such as Country Joe, Neil Young/CSNY, and Barry McGuire ("Eve of Destruction").

Subject: Is anyone going to point out that Bush, who got out of the National Guard 7 months early, is putting stop losses on soldiers in Iraq now?

The irony is not lost one me -- the Vietnam war was going on during Bush getting out early, yet he is extending soldiers' duties now.

I hope you report this.

Karin DickerLos Angeles

Subject: Letter sent to Newsweek: Richard Wolffe Spins, Fabricates, and Omits in His Effort to Protect Our Retarded President's Image

So just how long has Newsweek considered itself a public relations agency operating in the interests of the Bush administration? Richard Wolffe’s gushing report on the President’s experiences at the G8 conference last week epitomizes the concept of journalistic "whitewash" at every possible opportunity. Following a five-paragraph tone-setting introduction that presents Bush as a tuned-in, proactive statesman - in contradiction to the detatched and petulant persona the president himself exposed at every opportunity during the conference - Wolffe proceeds in journal format to ignore or recast in a positive light each and every nationally embarrassing faux pas committed by the president at the summit.

Bush’s morally and culturally obtuse performance at the German press conference on Thursday, July 13 - when he responded to reporters' serious questions about the multiple open conflicts between religious groups in the Middle East with redundant and shockingly callow quips about pig-meat - is referenced in Wolffe’s piece solely as "Bush...enjoyed feasting on wild boar." Also according to Wolffe; Bush "wooed" and "surprised" German chancellor Angela Merkel with an unsolicited neck-rub in a meeting during the Russian leg of the conference, despite the German press uniformly referencing our president’s imposition on their leader with the headline: "Bush: Liebes-Attacke auf Merkel!" Wolffe presents this unprecedented event - an American president being rebuffed by a fellow world leader via a standard date-rape self-defense maneuver - as being merely a factor of some mythical Bush family tendency toward interpersonal warmth.

Totally ignored by Wolffe was Bush’s accidentally open-miked conversation with Tony Blair at a state dinner in St. Petersburg, during which he slumped in his chair emitting expletives and chunks of caviar through his open mouth as he chewed and spoke simultaneously. The article makes no mention of the information revealed to the world through this unguarded discussion: including Bush’s shockingly simplistic conception of the Israeli/Hezbollah conflict and the fact that he is aware that "Russia is Big; so is China."

Most alarmingly, Wolffe actually rewrote a key event at the conference in order to put Bush in a better light:

Bush doesn’t know that Putin has been readying a joke of his own (source please, Mr. Wolffe?). When asked a predictable question about the state of Russian democracy, Putin pounces: "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly." There are guffaws from the Russian media and gasps from American reporters.

One can only assume that the loudest and most sincere of these gasps came from Mr. Wolffe himself - and perhaps it was this attack of the vapors that caused him to incorrectly recall the immediately preceding sequence of events. Putin’s jab was not in response to a reporter’s question, in fact, but to this preposterous statement by President Bush himself:

I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq, where there’s a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country, you know, would hope that Russia would do the same thing. I fully understand, however, that there will be a Russian style democracy.

- at which point Putin threw his barb and Mr. Wolffe gasped. What was the Russian leader supposed to have said? "Thank you, Mr. President, for your scolding; Russia is happy to emulate the fine conditions you have brought to Iraq"? His constituents would have sent him off to Siberia; Mr. Wolffe’s wilting sensibilities notwithstanding.

I am not sure why Wolffe thinks no one would notice the clear discrepancy between his writing and the video recordings and transcripts of the events on which he is ostensibly reporting. Newsweek discredits itself by presenting such a biased and empirically truncated hagiography in the face of growing public recognition that the United States is being lead by a man wholly outmatched by his office.